


Hear You Me

by sara_holmes



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Bucky Barnes Angst, Bucky loves Steve so much he doesn't know what to do with himself, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Captain America: The First Avenger, Drowning, Emotional Hurt, Grief/Mourning, Hurt Bucky Barnes, M/M, Not A Fix-It, Not Really Character Death, POV Bucky Barnes, Protective Bucky Barnes, Steve Angst, ghost!bucky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-11
Updated: 2014-08-11
Packaged: 2018-02-12 18:57:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2121057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sara_holmes/pseuds/sara_holmes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I need you to hear me,” Bucky says to Steve's sleeping form, voice thick. “If you’re dreaming in there, come on out here and listen because I need you to hear me. Steve, I’m – I don’t think I’m dead. Not all the way dead, anyway. And I need you to come and find me. All those times I found you in alleys, all beat to hell – just like the time you found me in the Hydra Base, I need you to do it one last time.”</p>
<p>After falling from the train, Bucky finds himself not-quite-dead and not-quite-alive. He's not sure which state of affairs is more painful.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hear You Me

**Author's Note:**

> HERE. HAVE TRAUMATIC BUCKY AND STEVE FEELS. This is the result of casually throwing around the most angsty headcanons that I could possibly think of, and then my partner in crime, the devious [everyworldneedslove](http://everyworldneedslove.tumblr.com/), said something along the lines of YES WRITE THE BUCKY IS A GHOST STORY YOU FUCKING EVIL GENIUS and so yes here we are.
> 
> Feel free to prompt me [on Tumblr](http://captn-sara-holmes.tumblr.com/)!

The blood is so, so red.

And Christ, there’s so much of it.

Bucky stares down at himself, the broken body in the snow. He’s looking at his own body, laid out in pieces on the ground, and all he can think is _that’s a fucking lot of blood._

Snowflakes drift down from the white sky above, silently floating down to rest on the ground, settling on the body that lies there at his feet. His coat is drenched in blood – god, there’s so much blood – and it looks almost black instead of the navy blue it should be.

He’s dead.

He’s standing here, and his body is there, and he knows he must be-

Blinding pain slices through him, tearing his chest in two. He gasps and suddenly he’s lying on his back, staring up at rocks and broken trees, a steely white sky. Snowflakes lazily spiral down, landing on his face, his eyelashes, his mouth. He tries to move, can’t. He tries to breathe and just chokes, metallic warmth gurgling and spitting in his throat. Oh god, it hurts. He wants to scream, wants to cry, wants someone to find him-

And he’s back, standing next to his body, alone in the snow. He looks down at himself, the version of him that’s standing there, and he’s grey and pale and it’s not right, it doesn’t look right. He starts to feel panic in his chest, paralyzing panic and fear clawing up his spine and wrapping tight around his throat.

“Hello?” he tries, and his voice is trembling and broken, cracking as he tries again. “Anyone?”

The forest stretches out around him, silent. No-one answers.

He remembers – he remembers the train. Looks up and around, feeling tears hot on his face. “Steve,” he tries to call out, taking a stumbling step forwards. Desperate, he glances back at the broken body on the floor and then up again, up to where he knows the tracks are-

He shudders, staggering forwards another step. He stumbles, stops.

There’s no answer. He’s alone.

He lifts a pale grey hand, wipes his face with the back of his hand. He doesn’t understand, he doesn’t know what’s happening, he doesn’t want to be here-

“Steve,” he whispers, heart feeling as broken as the body that lies on the ground behind him.

 

* * *

 

Pain. Dragging, aching pain. He blinks dazedly and the tops of trees swim into view, high above his head. There’s a rough dragging sound, low voices. His left side is on fire, he’s sure of it- 

He jolts forwards, stops. He breathes in thickly, coughs. The forest swims above him, vision going black around the edges. His body jolts again, and he realizes he’s being dragged along the floor, strong hands wrapped around his ankles.

_Steve?_

He blinks, and for a moment he’s standing upright, staring up at the side of a mountain with cold air fresh on his face, but then he blinks again and he’s back on the floor in his shattered body.

He’s sick and feverish, and everything hurts. He can smell blood and dirt, can taste it. He tries to make a sound, but everything goes blurry, and he sinks willingly back into the darkness.

 

* * *

 

And Steve is there. 

Steve is sitting alone in a bombed out bar, and there’s a bottle of whiskey in front of him, and he’s crying so hard he’s nearly choking.

“Steve?”

Heart in his mouth, Bucky starts walking across the room towards him, slipping and stumbling on pieces of broken masonry, wrecked furniture. His heart is hammering in his chest so hard that he feels sick, and he doesn’t know why he’s here but Steve is there, and Steve is still crying, and Bucky needs to get there-

“Steve,” he calls again, voice cracking. He’s starting to panic again, because why isn’t Steve listening to him-

He reaches Steve. Reaches out for him.

His fingers blur and fade as he tries to touch Steve’s, curled around the glass tumbler on the table in front of him.

Bucky chokes on a sob, biting it back. Even as Bucky starts to fall apart, Steve tries to pull himself together, taking deep shuddering breaths and tipping his head back, the same way he did when his Ma died and he was trying to get it together, sitting on the couch in Bucky’s parents’ house-

“Steve,” Bucky whispers, chin trembling.

Steve can’t hear him.

Mouth twisting, Bucky steps back and sits down heavily on the floor with his back against the remnants of the bar. He doesn’t take his eyes away from Steve. He doesn’t dare. 

He watches as Steve pours himself a drink, careless enough so that drops of whiskey darken the dust covered table. He knocks it back in one rough swallow, eyes clenched shut and forehead creasing as he fights back tears.

“Steve,” Bucky tries, voice wavering. “Steve, can you-”

He breaks off, because deep down he knows that Steve can’t.

He doesn’t know how long he sits there, grey and silent and still, like some sorry excuse for an angel watching over Steve as he desperately tries to get drunk, to forget. He can’t, they both know he can’t. Bucky wants to shout at him, to tell him to stop, to shake him and scream _I’m here, I’m right here, I haven’t gone yet you jerk._

He doesn’t. He just sits and watches, tears blurring his vision as Steve sits alone and broken, agony in his blue eyes that Bucky can’t do anything about.

Noise from the space where the doorway used to be draws his attention, and he looks up. A shadow shifts against the wall, and Steve looks around too-

Bucky’s hands flicker, grey vanishing for a fraction of a second. He blinks, and above him he sees a tiled ceiling, a man with a mask over his mouth bending over and shining a light into his eyes-

He shakes his head, fights to keep himself awake. He looks at Steve, desperate.

“Steve, no-”

A figure steps in to the bar, but Bucky is gone.

 

* * *

 

 

Bucky struggles to open his eyes, stomach roiling as pain wracks through his body. He coughs, chokes, tastes blood and bile in the back of his mouth. Everything is so bright; the white circles are light above him are blinding. There’s something on his face, a mask of some sorts. He’s dizzy, and everything hurts, and why is he here and not with Steve-

An alarmed voice echoes somewhere nearby. He feels a stab of pain in his neck, and the world slides away from him as he falls into nothingness.

 

* * *

 

And he’s with Steve in his rooms in the barracks, his private quarters. He’s not crying anymore, but he’s got this look about him, something angry and lost, something that wants to wrench the world back into the place he needs it to be- 

“Steve,” Bucky calls out, but Steve doesn’t react. Just like Bucky knew he wouldn’t. Bucky tries again, tries shouting, screaming, whispering. He tries moving things in the room, grabbing Steve, pushing him, praying to him.

None of it works.

“I hate you,” Bucky spits as Steve sits on the end of his bed, staring down at a map. “I am still out there somewhere, why aren’t you looking for me, you fucking asshole-”

Suddenly, Steve stands up and hurls the map across the room. He kicks his trunk and the wood splinters, shatters inwards. 

“Fuck,” Steve bites out, reaching up and grabbing his hair in his hands, clenching tight. “ _Fuck_.”

“Steve,” Bucky says, and automatically reaches for him. He stops, hands dropping to his sides.

Steve slumps back down onto his bed, elbows on his knees and head in his hands.

“Bucky,” he whispers, and Bucky could _cry._

“I’m here, you moron, I’m right here. Don’t cry, Steve, I didn’t mean it-”

He reaches out, and his whole arm flickers in and out of sight.

“No,” he says, shaking his head violently. He wants to stay here, he needs to be here. His whole body flickers again, and as it does he feels a stab of pain in his side. “No, Steve, no-!”

He’s gone.

* * *

 

 

He wakes again, and he’s back in Steve’s room, and Steve is asleep. He doesn’t know how much time has passed since he was here last. It’s quiet and still and Bucky’s chest aches as he looks at Steve. 

Slowly, he walks over and sits down next to Steve’s bed, eyes on his face. He’s frowning in his sleep, just like he used to. Bucky reaches out to touch, his fingers fading and blurring as he goes to stroke across Steve’s cheek.

“Remember,” he says, and stops. He laughs shortly, and tears side down his cheeks, welling up without warning. “Remember when you were small enough for us to share.”

He remembers it like it was yesterday. Remembers Steve’s scrawny frame tucked in against his own. Remembers the night that he slid an arm around Steve’s waist without thinking about it, realizing what he’d done about ten seconds later and trying to pull away-

Remembers Steve’s fingers threading through his own and tugging his arm back, wordless.

“I need you to hear me,” he says, voice thick. “If you’re dreaming in there, come on out here and listen because I need you to hear me. Steve, I’m – I don’t think I’m dead. Not all the way dead, anyway. And I need you to come and find me. All those times I found you in alleys, all beat to hell – just like the time you found me in the Hydra Base, I need you to do it one last time-”

He shudders, breathes out, presses his lips together hard. “I swear, I won’t cause you no more trouble ever again, just come get me this one time,” he says, and his voice cracks on the last word. “Steve, someone’s got me. I think someone’s got me that I don’t want to have me.”

Fear tightens his throat, cuts off his words.  Steve jerks in his sleep, a convulsive twitch. He lets out a soft noise, a pained sound.

“Shush, shush, you’re alright,” Bucky says, blinking through blurry eyes. “Goddamn it, Rogers. Why do I only ever – it’s only you who ever makes me cry, you fucking punk.”

Steve shudders, goes still. His breathing evens out, the fear easing away, if only momentarily.

“Remember when I kissed you,” Bucky whispers, because no-one can hear him, and if no-one can hear him it’s the same as staying silent, right? “That night we’d been out drinking, and you tripped up those damn stairs right into my arms like some sort of dame from the movies. What else was I meant to do?”

He stops, swallows. He shuts his eyes and can see it right there; him leant back against the wall with his hands on Steve’s waist, Steve half on his feet after tripping up the step, hands gripping Bucky’s jacket, and Bucky was laughing and laughing and Steve was trying to tell him to stop. They were pressed together chest to chest and Bucky remembers the laughter fading, the awareness of how close they actually were, the way Steve’s eyes had flickered over his face-

He remembers the taste of Steve’s mouth under his, how perfectly still Steve had been, barely breathing under his hands. Remembers the momentary panic rising like bile until Steve had leaned up and gently kissed him back, one searching, clumsy press of Steve’s mouth against his.

“I can’t die,” Bucky tells Steve. “You’ll do something dumb if I’m not here to kick your ass.”

Steve sleeps on, chest rising and falling with each breath he takes.

 

* * *

 

“Hydra’s last base is here, in the alps, five hundred feet below the surface.” 

All eyes swivel to Colonel Philips. Bucky glances at him, and then back at Steve. He looks better today, more like himself. Bucky wants to learn to be a poltergeist so he can throw something at him and make him not okay, and he doesn’t care how selfish it is. The room is packed, full of people that Bucky desperately wants to be able to touch again. It almost physically hurts, seeing the Commandos there without him.

“So what are we supposed to do?” Morita says flatly, tossing the photos back onto the gleaming surface of the table. “It’s not like we can just knock on the front door.”

“Why not?”

Bucky turns to look at Steve. “Steve, no,” he says loudly.

As one, everyone looks at Steve, expectant. Expectant and far too fucking acquiescent, in Bucky’s opinion.  

“That’s exactly what we’re gonna do,” Steve says, jaw set in that determined way that Bucky knows too well. He feels alarm and panic rise up in his gut because Steve Rogers is a fucking moron and here it is, he’s been not-quite-dead for barely a fortnight and Steve is already planning something dumb that is only going to get his stupid ass hurt, and Bucky isn’t even there to patch him back together if he does.

They come up with a plan. It’s a stupid plan, and Bucky would slap Steve for it if he could. He’s getting angrier and angrier every day, every day that he wakes up in this pale grey body that no-one can see, no-one can hear. Moments like this, where he _needs_ to be heard, are almost unbearable.

Details are finalized, times are confirmed. Bucky lurks at the back in the shadows, less like an angel and more like some sort of a vengeful spirit, full of anger and spite and unfinished business.

The room slowly empties. Peggy Carter reaches out and touches Steve’s hand. Steve nods at her and Bucky bites down on a scream of jealousy, because if he were still there he wouldn’t _care_ , because no matter who else Steve looks at, he never looks at them like he does Bucky-

But Bucky isn’t there to look at anymore, and even though he can see Steve, he’s not sure Steve is ever going to be able to see him again.

 

* * *

 

 

The tiles above him swim across his vision, lazily waltzing in haphazard patterns. He hurts again, an ache all over. 

He blinks slowly, eyes rolling back in his head. Is he alive? Is he back in his broken body again? Where even is it? Where is he? Does it even matter?

_Need to be where Steve is_ , he vaguely thinks, blinking slowly again. Need to stay alive, because Steve needs him. He needs Steve.

He exhales heavily. His eyes drift shut, and he’s gone.

 

* * *

 

“Wish you were here, Buck,” Steve says quietly, staring up at the night sky, clear and bright with stars. He’s alone. As alone as he’ll ever be with Bucky nearby, anyway. 

Sitting on the ground a few feet away, Bucky stays silent. He doesn’t call out to tell him he’s here. It’s pointless.

“Remember that night,” Steve says suddenly, eyes closed. He huffs out a breath, curling white in the air in front of him. “That night there was three feet of snow outside the front door, and it was so cold-”

Bucky swallows. He remembers it well. He also knows why Steve isn’t finishing the sentence. If he said it out loud and someone overheard-

“I wish I’d told you,” Steve says, barely more than a mutter, and Bucky’s eyes go wide. They never talked about that night. The night they’d been pressed together in Steve’s bed to try and beat the cold and somehow they’d ended up kissing again, like they’d said they wouldn’t, not ever again. It had been warm under the blankets, pressed together chest to chest and hip to hip, rocking clumsily against each other. Bucky remembers the feel of Steve’s hands on his neck, gripping so tight as Steve panted into his mouth, the feel of Steve’s spine as his hand slid down his back. The way Steve had started to speak, whispering _“Bucky, I-”_ before breaking apart on a gasp-

“Should have told you,” the Steve in front of him repeats, opening his eyes and shaking his head. He turns to walk away.

“Told me what?” Bucky demands, and scrambles to his feet. “Tell me what, Steve? Steve!”

His shouts echo in the darkness, and Steve walks away.

 

* * *

 

 

“I’ve got to put her in the water.” 

“Steve, no,” Bucky whispers, and his eyes are filling with tears again, always too easy when it’s this beautiful man in front of him. “Steve, _don’t_ ,” he demands, voice wavering. Over the radio, Peggy Carter is also trying to reason with the stubborn bastard, and Bucky hates that Steve can hear her and not him, but what does it matter, because Steve isn’t listening anyway.

The plane goes down.

It hits the ice with a sound like thunder and gunfire. Bucky watches helplessly as Steve is thrown from the seat like a rag doll, hitting the glass windows up front hard enough to crack them. The lights all cut out, throwing the cockpit into near darkness.

Water starts to pour in. Steve doesn’t move.

“No, no,” Bucky says as he slides down the slanted floor of the cockpit, hitting the glass next to where Steve is slumped. The shield lies next to him, bright in the gloom. “Steve, get up,” Bucky shouts, tries to pull at him. Screams in frustration because he _can’t._ “Steve, I swear to god if you die properly and I don’t-”

The water rises. The ice around them creaks and groans, snapping with sounds like gunshots.

“No,” Bucky shouts, and the water swirls around his knees, through his knees. “You did not become Captain America to crash a plane in the fucking arctic-”

His breath catches on a sob. Steve’s body shifts as the water rises, and it creeps up, lapping at his face and god, he’s going to drown, he’s going to drown and there’s nothing Bucky can do about it.

“Steve, don’t,” Bucky whispers. “Steve, get up.”

The glass windows shatter. Water pours in, and Bucky cries out as the water engulfs Steve, and he still doesn’t move-

His hands flicker in and out of sight.

“No,” he screams, because he will _not_ leave Steve here to drown, he will not leave him here alone in the cold. “Steve, I’m here, don’t you fucking go without me, Steve-!”

He reaches desperately for Steve, hands grasping through the ice cold water. Steve is so pale he’s nearly white, and as Bucky watches a rush of bubbles escape from his mouth and he starts to sink-

Bucky’s entire body flickers, and the last thing he sees is Steve’s face vanishing into the darkness, peaceful and calm.

 

* * *

 

 

He wakes up screaming. His heart is pounding and his body hurts, and the lights above him are too bright. 

“Steve,” he tries, and hands are grabbing him and trying to pin him down. He shoves at them with his right hand, panicking as he feels nothing but pins and needles in his left. He needs to get up, Steve is drowning somewhere and Bucky needs to get to him-

“Hold him down,” a voice commands. “ _Bystro! Sdelayte eto seychas!”_

Shapes move up above him. This isn’t right, he’s awake but he’s not with Steve, he can touch and he can feel the weight of the hands pressing down on him. He struggles, but he can’t get his limbs to cooperate; his right arm is clumsy and weak and his left still won’t fucking move at all-

There’s a sharp pain in his neck, and he feels the fight drain out of him.

“Steve,” he murmurs groggily as his vision goes blurry.

“ _Protrite yego_ ,” a calm voice says above him, and Bucky tries to work out if he’s dead or alive or a bit of both. He forces his eyes open, tries to stay awake. He needs to get to Steve.

“Should we wait-?”

“You heard what I said,” the voice says, heavy with an accent that Bucky can’t quite grasp. He blinks, and a silhouette appears above him, eyes bright and curious.

“Steve,” Bucky slurs.

The figure looks at him contemplatively for a moment, and then finally speaks again.

“Wipe him.”

 


End file.
